set_[36]--corrupted finally to 'Higganum,' the name of a
brook and parish in the north-east part of Haddam,--appears to have
been, originally, the designation of a locality from which the Indians
procured stone suitable for making axes,--_tomhegun-ompsk-ut_, 'at the
tomahawk rock.' In 'Higganompos,' as the name was sometimes written,
without the locative affix, we have less difficulty in recognizing the
substantival _-ompsk_.

[Footnote 36: Conn. Col. Records, i. 434.]

QUSSUK, another word for 'rock' or 'stone,' used by Eliot and Roger
Williams, is not often--perhaps never found in local names. _Hassun_
or _Assun_ (Chip. _assin'_; Del. _achsin_;) appears in New England
names only as an adjectival (_assune_, _assini_, 'stony'), but farther
north, it occasionally occurs as the substantival component of such
names as _Mistassinni_, 'the Great Stone,' which gives its name to a
lake in British America, to a tribe of Indians, and to a river that
flows into St. John's Lake.[37]

[Footnote 37: Hind's Exploration of Labrador, vol. ii. pp. 147, 148.]

7. WADCHU (in composition, -ADCHU) means, always, 'mountain' or
'hill.' In _Wachuset_, we have it, with the locative affix _-set_,
'near' or 'in the vicinity of the mountain,'--a name which has been
transferred to the mountain itself. With the adjectival _massa_,
'great,' is formed _mass-adchu-set_, 'near the great mountain,' or
'great hill country,'--now, _Massachusetts_.

'_Kunckquachu_' and '_Quunkwattchu_,' mentioned in the deeds of Hadley
purchase, in 1658,[38] are forms of _qunu[n]kqu-adchu_, 'high
mountain,'--afterwards belittled as 'Mount Toby.'

[Footnote 38: History of Hadley, 21, 22, 114.]

'_Kearsarge_,' the modern name of two well-known mountains in New
Hampshire, disguises _k[oo]wass-adchu_, 'pine mountain.' On Holland's
Map, published in 1784, the southern Kearsarge (in Merrimack county)
is marked "Kyarsarga Mountain; by the Indians, _Cowissewaschook_."[39]
In this form,--which the termination _ok_ (for _ohke_, _auke_,
'land,') shows to belong to the _region_, not exclusively to the
mountain itself,--the analysis becomes more easy. The meaning of the
adjectival is perhaps not quite certain. _K[oo]wa_ (Abn. _k[oo]e_) 'a
pine tree,' with its diminutive, _k[oo]wasse_, is a derivative,--from
a root which means 'sharp,' 'pointed.' It is _possible_, that in this
synthesis, the root preserves its primary signification, and that
'Kearsarge' is the 'pointed' or 'pea